Seriously. Not really. But I am in such dire need of a life that I am writing about it, and that’s pretty sad.

This is going to sound terribly creepy, but whenever I meet a person, the first thing I do is evaluate how much of a life he or she has. I like to surround myself with people who have cool (but not really cool) lives, so I can feel somewhat important myself.

Here’s how I decide whether or not a person has a life:

“Hey, so what are you doing this weekend?” “Hitting the books.”

Boring, okay. Boring. Like me.

“Really? That’s all?”“Well, my band might have a gig on Saturday night, but that’s still being decided.”

…Maybe not. He’s in a band. Got it. Maybe not boring. Kind of cool maybe. But it’s just a maybe so he’s only maybe cool.

“That’s really cool! What do you play?”“Um…Harmonica.”

Harmonica? Who plays that? That’s pretty awesome. Okay, this guy’s not so bad. Maybe we can be friends.

“Wow, I don’t know anyone who plays harmonica. That sounds like a lot of fun.”“Yeah, it’s tough to learn. Like any instrument, though.”“Definitely. How was your winter break?”“I was in Africa for the entire two weeks, which was awesome, but I didn’t get any work done.”

Africa. Too cool. Little bit too cool.

“I’ve always wanted to go to Africa! What were you doing there?”“I was there to support a water filtration system. You know, because a lot of African kids get diseases from drinking lake water.”

What? Too cool. Way too cool. I feel like a lazy blob. Too cool.

At this point, the conversation ends because I’m feeling a little too boring and a little too lazy-blobish. But let me tell you, if I had to continue the conversation, it might end up something like this:

“You suck.”“What?”“I hate you.”“Why the heck do you hate me?”“Because you suck and you’re too cool and I hate you.”

And then I would walk away.

The only thing worse than having no life is being an Asian with no life in a private school filled with rich people with super outrageous lives. Somehow, people expect me to be some sort of genius ninja sushi-chef. I like to exaggerate stories in order to make myself seem less like a not-smart not-ninja horrible-chef Asian.